Lofty views have long moved thoughtful souls to reflect on their property portfolios. The great Alexander hiked up the Eurasian Steppe in order to cry, because there was no land left to conquer. Mufasa the lion led Simba up Pride Rock to celebrate the fact that “everything the light touches is ours”. I believe stout Cortez did something of the like too.
Probably none of those famous perches reached a vantage so high as London’s 224-metre “Cheese Grater” skyscraper. But the folk who gathered there on Tuesday 22 July had less vaunted reflections. Alexander wept because he owned all of his view. The attendees here wept because they owned none of theirs. Everything the light touched was a landlord’s. The event was titled “Shit! I’m in my 30s and not on the property ladder WTF?!”
Before the talk, I spoke to a 28-year-old civil servant from the north-west who wanted a child and a garden with his girlfriend. But, he said, “I genuinely cannot work out a calculation that puts me in a job where I can afford to.” Without family dying and leaving inheritances, there was no way anyone could afford anything. “People are facing a worse time than ever when it comes to buying… It’s such a depressing state to be in.” He had heard Japan was encouraging pro-immigration sentiment so young immigrants could fund the ageing population. But as more housing would damage the value of the existing stock, he had little hope of new building. “I hate to be prophet of doom but it’s what goes around inside my head. And I absolutely know that it’s what goes around the heads of people my age all around the country.”
Hosting the panel were columnist and housing campaigner Vicky Spratt and mortgage expert Andrew Montlake. The sofa had a hero for the crowd: a thirty-something professional living in a flatshare, wondering how she might ever buy a home. And the house villain: a slickly besuited man who had stopped “messing around” trying to become a musician at 27, and was now an estate agent. But despite the potential Punch-and-Judy casting, the points made were tender.
As Spratt put it, British people “want a piece of the world that is theirs”. In lots of places, owning your house is not part of the culture. It’s quite normal to rent all your life in several northern European countries. But the fact is that, in Britain, ownership is entrenched. Putting wealth in inert assets is not productive; but it has been profitable for generations, and it is now habit. In a recent Times column, Matthew Syed explained that his generation bought homes with their money “because we naturally wanted to own our homes but also because we knew our wealth would surge”. They were right. He points out that in the last 30 years, London house prices are up 2,100 per cent.
But that climb took prices far beyond wages, and so far above what the next generation could afford. It’s such a glaring injustice that even Nigel Farage has made it part of his schtick, at times sounding like Jeremy Corbyn. (Ander perhaps Generation Rent is listening: Farage has more TikTok followers than all other MPs together.) He puts it succinctly. “Getting a house, getting a good job. All they want is what their mum and dad have had! Or what their gran and grandad have had.”
A difficulty in changing Britain is that the have-nots are so exposed to the haves. And that makes them angry. The young professional on stage fumed that the people who had answered no to her Instagram poll on whether people deserved to own homes were those whose parents had helped them buy one. Repeatedly summoned was the figure of the owner-landlord, who gets their tenant to work off their mortgage, or pay for their holidays. As the essayist Oliver Eagleton has put it, “domestically, rentierism is the major structural problem for the British economy”.
It is a problem for the British heart too. The government has recognised this and plans soon to implement the Renters’ Rights Bill. And the panel expected that any future governments would continue the popular course.
The near-term upshot of a more hostile letting environment is a transfer of stock as landlords sell to private, live-in buyers. What that means, the panel explained, is that if you can, you should buy as soon as possible. The supply flow will suppress prices but squeeze rents. (And Spratt noted that rent never seems to come back down again after inflationary pressures abate.) There will be between three and five years of this. Then, the supply dried up and the rent raised, property value will start to climb again. There is a right side and a wrong side to be on when that happens.
Our only really radical solution available is to build much more housing. Oli Dugmore called for 5 million new homes in these pages. But Labour’s flagship planning reforms recently made concessions to Chris Hinchliff’s environmental regulations. And at the Cheese Grater, there was simply little hope that the young could ever prevail. For most owners, the house is the most valuable asset. They don’t want it cheapened, and they have the power.
[Further reading: Landlordism is killing culture]
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